Some passages in the gospels have never quite fit the standard definition of faith. You may have noticed it yourself — a story that felt wrong in the details, a teaching that did not quite land. Most of us learned to ignore that feeling. After all, who are we to question the interpretation we were given?
But the problem was never that these passages were hard to understand. The problem was that we were reading them with the wrong definition of a single word.
No one is entirely to blame. The translators made choices that lost meaning. Pastors repeated what they were taught. And most of us never picked up the original languages to check for ourselves. The result is a set of stories that have been explained away, softened, or twisted into something they were never meant to say.
In recent posts, we traced the Greek word pistis back to its Hebrew origin in emunah and its connection to hesed — the covenant loyalty at the heart of Scripture. Pistis means trusting allegiance — the whole-person loyalty the earliest English translators called "faith."
If you have not read those yet, start here:
Now let's look at a variety of verses that make more sense once we understand the true meaning of the words.
1. Have Faith in God (Mark 11:22)
Jesus says something in Mark's gospel that your Bible probably translates this way:
"Have faith in God."
— Mark 11:22
Simple enough. Believe in God. Trust him. Don't doubt. Right?
But here is what the Greek actually says:
Ἔχετε πίστιν θεοῦ — Echete pistin theou
Literally: "Have pistis of God." The word theou ("of God") is in the genitive case. That means the phrase can be read:
Have the faithfulness of God (pistis that belongs to God and is given to you).
This reading changes everything. Jesus is not just telling his disciples to muster up more belief. He is telling them to receive and embody the very faithfulness of God. To live out of God's own covenant loyalty.
2. The Mustard Seed (Matthew 17:20)
The disciples tried to drive a demon out of a boy and failed. They asked Jesus why.
"Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."
Most sermons on this verse go like this: "Your problem is that you do not have enough faith. If you could just depend on God more, you could do anything. You need more faith."
But that sermon misses the point.
Look at the word Jesus uses. The Greek word is oligopistia — made up of two parts. Oligos means "little" or "small." And pistis — the same word we have been talking about — means "faithfulness," "allegiance," "loyalty."
So oligopistia is not "little belief." It is "little loyalty." "Small allegiance." A divided commitment.
Jesus is not saying the disciples needed a larger quantity of mental agreement. He is saying their allegiance was too small — not in volume, but in direction. They were looking at the problem instead of looking at the King. Their loyalty was split.
A tiny amount of undivided allegiance — the size of a mustard seed — is more powerful than a huge amount of divided loyalty. Because your pistis is not a force you generate to make things happen. It is your connection to the God who has all power. Even a thin thread can hold you to a solid anchor.
3. The Hemorrhaging Woman (Mark 5:25-34)
A woman had been bleeding for twelve years. She had spent all her money on doctors. Nothing helped. She was considered unclean by the religious laws of her time. She was not supposed to be in public. She was not supposed to touch anyone.
But she heard about Jesus.
She pushed through the crowd. She reached out her hand. She touched the edge of his cloak.
And she was healed instantly.
Jesus felt the power leave him. He turned around. "Who touched my clothes?"
The woman was terrified. She fell at his feet. She told him the whole story.
And Jesus said: "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace."
Your pistis has saved you.
What was her pistis? It was not a set of correct beliefs. We do not know what she believed about Jesus's identity. She may not have understood who he was. But she understood one thing: if she could just reach him, something would change. She trusted him. She acted on that trust. She pushed through the crowd because she believed he could help her.
That is pistis in action. Not sitting in a pew and mentally agreeing with a sermon. Reaching out. Taking a risk. Acting on the trust you have, however small it is.
4. The Centurion's Faith (Matthew 8:5-13)
A Roman centurion came to Jesus. His servant was paralyzed and suffering. He asked Jesus to heal him.
Jesus offered to come to his house. The centurion said something remarkable:
"Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes."
Jesus was amazed. He turned to the crowd and said:
"Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith."
Here is what is striking about this story. The centurion was a Gentile. He was a pagan by upbringing. He had not been raised on the Scriptures. He did not know the prophecies about the Messiah. He had no doctrinal training at all.
But he understood authority. He understood that Jesus had authority over sickness the same way he had authority over his soldiers. And he acted on that understanding.
Jesus said he had pistis — and called it greater than anything he had found in Israel, the people who had been studying the Scriptures for two thousand years.
This story shows the limits of a purely informational view of faith. The centurion had less correct information than any faithful Jew. But he had more pistis than all of them.
5. The Thief on the Cross (Luke 23:39-43)
This verse is a problem for anyone who defines faith as mental agreement.
Two criminals are crucified next to Jesus. One mocks him. The other turns his head — with what little strength he has left, with nails through his hands, unable to move or change his life in any way — and says:
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
That is it. No confession of sin. No statement of belief about the resurrection. No offer to make things right. No opportunity for baptism or good works. Just a simple act of allegiance: "Remember me when you come into your kingdom."
And Jesus says:
"Today you will be with me in paradise."
Think about what this means for the traditional definition of faith. The thief had no time to learn correct doctrine. He had no chance to "invite Jesus into his heart." He had no opportunity for any of the things that mainstream Christianity says are necessary for salvation.
But he showed pistis. In his final moment, he chose a side. He declared his allegiance to Jesus as King. And Jesus accepted him.
If the traditional definition of faith is right, this story becomes difficult to explain. If faith means accepting correct propositions about God, the thief should have been rejected for lacking proper theological understanding.
But if pistis means trusting allegiance — if it means choosing whose side you are on — then this story makes perfect sense. The thief chose his side with his last breath, and Jesus honored that choice.
This does not mean correct theology is unimportant. It means correct theology is not what saves you.
6. Faith Like a Child (Mark 10:13-16)
People brought their children to Jesus. The disciples tried to stop them. Jesus was indignant:
"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."
Then he took the children in his arms and blessed them.
This verse is often sentimentalized. "Have simple faith like a child." "Do not overthink it." "Just trust like a kid trusts their parents."
There is truth in that. But there is more.
Children in the ancient world had no power, no status, no rights. They were completely dependent on their parents for everything. A child does not earn their place in the family. A child does not negotiate the terms of their relationship with their parents. A child simply belongs.
That is what it means to receive the kingdom "like a little child." You stop trying to earn your place. You stop trying to negotiate the terms. You simply trust the Father and let yourself belong.
This is pistis as dependence. Not mental agreement with doctrines. Not a transaction you perform to get something. Jesus said the kingdom belongs to such as these — and belonging is the language of covenant, not commerce. This is your invitation into a family, not your completion of a deal. It is a trust that says, "You are my Father. I belong to you. I trust you for everything."
7. Protecting the Covenant (Mark 10:2-12)
The Pharisees came to Jesus with a test: "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"
Under the Mosaic Law, a man could divorce his wife for "some indecency" and give her a certificate of divorce (Deuteronomy 24:1). The rabbis of Jesus's day argued endlessly about what counted. Some said only adultery. Others said almost anything.
Jesus bypassed the debate entirely. He went back to the beginning:
"But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."
— Mark 10:6-9
Then he tightened the law: anyone who divorces and remarries commits adultery.
Why did Jesus take such a hard line? Because marriage is a covenant — a brit. It is the human relationship where hesed is meant to be most visibly embodied. By shutting down the divorce loophole, Jesus defended hesed itself. He refused to let the religious establishment treat covenant bonds as disposable contracts.
The Pharisees wanted to know how little loyalty they had to show. Jesus answered: your loyalty does not have a loophole. The covenant holds.
What These Passages Tell Us
If you read through these seven stories, a pattern emerges.
The people Jesus praised for their pistis were not the ones with the most correct theology. They were:
- The confused (the disciples hearing "have the faithfulness of God" for the first time)
- The divided (the disciples, who needed to look at God instead of the problem)
- The desperate (the hemorrhaging woman)
- The outsiders (the centurion)
- The dying (the thief on the cross)
- The dependent (children)
- The loophole-seekers (the Pharisees — Jesus showed them that covenant loyalty has no fine print)
This is consistent across all four gospels. Jesus was not seeking faith in himself. He was pointing people toward full pistis — covenant loyalty — toward God. Trusting allegiance to the one God of Israel, the same hesed-kind of faithfulness God has always shown to his people and has always asked for in return.